


Love's Kind Of Like A Trust Exercise... Only With An Increased Chance Of Falling

by iamtheoneinthehole



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1662485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamtheoneinthehole/pseuds/iamtheoneinthehole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted Anonymously; Hey! AHOT6 prompt for you (if you'd like, that is). I was just thinking one of the guys (preferably Ray if that's cool) is hesitant to enter the relationship because trusting one person is scary, but trusting five seems downright terrifying. Say he's sort of used to doing things on his own. The other five can be per-established or not, whichever works best. I don't know, I just like the idea of learning and building reliance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love's Kind Of Like A Trust Exercise... Only With An Increased Chance Of Falling

**Author's Note:**

> To the person who this fic is dedicated to- you know who you are, happy birthday! And I'm sorry it took so long to fill your prompt, hopefully it was worth the wait :)

Ray Narvaez Jr had never exactly been the best when it came to trusting people.

It wasn’t as if he’d had some terrible upbringing or particularly traumatic experience to make him feel that way. He hadn’t had cruel or distant parents, his friendships had all been relatively stable and there hadn’t been some great life-altering tragedy that’d set him on this path… He’d just always found it easier to keep himself to himself. He guessed there’d just been a part of him that had always been a little cautious or guarded when it came to forming relationships.

Because even when he’d only been a kid, and most of the other kids around him’s biggest worries had been deciding whether to be a superhero or a dragon when they grew up... Ray’s greatest fear had been that his friends would end up calling him names behind his back, or leaving him alone in the playground. It happened to the older kids all the time after all, didn’t it? Who was to say it wouldn’t happen to him too? And as he’d grown up, and had a few of those experiences first hand well… that hadn’t exactly helped things.

Of course he’d never experienced anything _too_ bad. He’d never really been bullied, and had actually made a handful of friends who’d been willing to put up with him and his quirks but… all the same, he’d never quite shaken the suspicion that they’d end up hurting him somehow. And it’d been a suspicion he’d carried into his later life, the niggling fear in the back of his mind that people would betray him. Friends, lovers, co-workers… because everyone else in the world got hurt all the time. Almost every song seemed to be about losing stuff or heartache. It was all over the TV, in a good half the movies he watched and most of the people he knew had experienced it and some point or another… And the main difference between them and Ray was that they let people close enough to do that. To hurt them. To have the power to hurt them.

So without even really meaning to, he’d built up barriers to the outside world even higher, using jokes, jibes and his own natural snark to hold those he was in any real danger of feeling _too_ close to at an arm’s length… He’d gotten a lot better, after all, at letting people in on a friendship level. Romance, however, was still a pretty huge issue since he’d never _quite_ managed to get over that initial trust hurdle when it came to forming romantic relationships. Because a friend betraying you hurt like hell, especially if they were a particularly close one but… chances were, you’d eventually recover from it. But when you fell in love? Well, you essentially handed the person you fell for your heart and gave them the power to make or break you with it...

And Ray was honestly more than a little bit terrified of that. Because giving yourself over to something and someone so completely it was just… far easier to keep his distance, to continue on the way he always had. Alone, and maybe a little lonely because of it but... safe in that solitude.

That didn’t stop him, however, from looking at what other people had with their partners with the slightest pang of loss, or jealously even, residing in his gut. Because despite his fears he did sometimes long for those little moments couples had, like holding someone’s hand, curling up on the couch together, kissing them in the rain… and all those dumb little clichéd things that probably didn’t actually happen outside of the movies. But Ray’s only real point of reference for that stuff, besides a few slightly awkward first dates in high school, and even awkwarder conversations with the few friends he’d actually trusted to ask about this stuff, he guessed he may have some slightly warped perceptions as far as this stuff went.

The point was, a part of him still did long for that sense of familiarity and warmth with another person but… he’d just never really managed to find someone he was willing to trust, or even capable of trusting, enough to let them in that deep…

He’d almost made an exception once though, for a man named Michael Jones.

They’d first met on an online gaming forum. Ray couldn’t even fully remember what those first words they’d said to each other on it had actually been. He knew there’d been some kind of dick joke in there somewhere, and enough gaming knowledge to catch his eye. What’d really made him warm up to the guy, enough to ask for his gamer tag and start playing matches with him, was that he’d been the only other person on that entire goddamn forum who’d actually seemed like a decent human being.

And so they’d wound up exchanging details and playing countless matches of CoD, Halo and whatever else came to mind as Ray gradually grew used to the familiar, and strangely comforting, sound of Michael’s voice screaming into his headset. It mostly came out when they were playing with others, definitely grew more exaggerated and extreme when they did. Michael had once described it as trying to ‘out-asshole the assholes’. Apparently he’d grown tired of hearing some random dick cursing loudly in his ear and so he’d started yelling back to drown them out, dealt with their rage by dealing out his own. And fact was, no one ‘raged’ quite like Michael.

When they played one-on-one though, away from any obnoxiously loud third parties that inevitably brought out his ‘rage’ and Ray’s more vicious snark, it became a little more laid back. Because as time passed, and they spent more and more hours playing together, a strange sort of bond developed between them. Inside jokes, dick jokes, butt jokes, dick in butt jokes… and somehow amidst that a tentative sort of bond that felt a little like the closer friendships Ray had developed over the years only… stronger somehow.

And initially when he’d realized that? Well, to say he’d freaked the fuck out would probably have been an understatement because how was that even fucking possible for him to feel closer to this guy, this stranger that he’d met online, than the friends he knew in real life? _They’d_ been ones that’d put up with his constant distancing after all, and who’d stuck by him through his insecurities. How could he feel closer to this man behind a mic than any of them? But he did and the wavery, yet strangely affectionate, feelings weren’t going away anytime soon, that much was obvious.

So he’d resolved to ignore them as much as he could, or at the very least to not freak out over something that Michael sure as hell couldn’t control. Because the guy _really_ didn’t deserve that crap just because of Ray’s lingering insecurities. All the same, the revelation had made him almost hyper aware of his and Michael’s interactions… and maybe that was why he’d finally realized what all those dick in butt jokes had actually been hinting towards, realized why Michael had a seemingly endless barrage of nicknames for him and why the Jersey man spent almost as much time playing games with Ray as he did at his actual job…

Which had naturally led to freak out number two, this one on a far greater scale since his immediate reaction to that knowledge hadn’t been sympathetic or nervous… it’d been _pleased_. He’d actually felt this weird rush of an excitable sort of happiness that he hadn’t quite been able to face, the stranger fluttering sensations in his gut almost disturbingly unfamiliar because, honestly, he had _no fucking idea_ how to actually deal with them.

He’d done his best not to let Michael know about this freak out either, though this time he couldn’t have been quite so convincing about it given the fact that, somehow, he’d tipped the man off that something was wrong, enough that he’d wound up pausing their game mid-session so that the two of them could ‘talk’ because clearly something was up and, apparently, if Michael had to sit through one more bullshit ‘I’m fine’ from Ray, he was pretty sure he’d lose his fucking mind.

So Ray had admitted that he wasn’t quite ‘fine’, not exactly… and then he’d done that dumb ‘I have this friend’ thing, the thing that no one ever quite believed, to explain his situation to the guy, his trust issues. In hindsight, maybe he should’ve chosen someone else to tell this to instead of the man that he still couldn’t put a face to a name for and who’d somehow, despite that, unearthed all these confusing feelings within him in the first place. But Michael was a damn good listener and, maybe for the same reasons he was getting these dumb fluttery feelings about the way, he found he was also strangely a lot easier to trust than most people. And after acknowledging that? Well, he’d started to wonder if maybe trying to see if he and Michael could become something more would really be such a bad thing.

In the end, he’d wimped out when Michael had actually asked him though. It’d been just a couple of weeks before they’d made plans to _finally_ meet up in person and the man had just so _happened_ to mention that the fact that they’d arranged to meet in a coffee shop kind of made it sound like a date… and that Michael might not be _entirely_ against the idea if it was. And he’d shot him down, nicely of course but all the same, he’d said no. And Michael had accepted that, given that the guy was anything but the jackass he often pretended to be when they played with others, or when he filmed his new ‘ragequit’ videos that Ray had talked him into uploading. Plus, he’d made it clear that this didn’t change a ‘goddamn fucking thing’ about their friendship, somehow managing to soothe the insecurities that’d begun to bubble up within Ray’s chest without even fully realizing they were there.

And a few weeks later when they’d finally met up, things hadn’t been awkward. They’d talked, laughed, traded snark and dick jokes but… the intent behind them that Ray had been picking up on before was gone. Michael knew better than to flirt with him now and he knew that, really, he should be grateful that the guy was so understanding but… honestly? It just fucking hurt most of the time because a part of Ray had wanted to say yes to that coffee date, it just hadn’t been brave enough to speak out against the towering wall of insecurity Ray had built up over the years.

So instead he’d continued to work with the platonic side of their bond, with the comforting and the familiar, all the while as he tried to shut out those feelings of loss, or regret over what could’ve been. It’d sucked most of the time if he was honest with himself, even more so because now every time he heard the redhead’s voice it just carved away at the strange sort of painful hollowness that now resided in his chest… at least, he told himself, it was better than the butterflies that’d been there before. Because maybe, just maybe, if he told himself that enough? He’d actually believe it.

\----

The first time he’d almost actually admitted to how he felt about Michael had been a good several months later, just shortly after the redhead had scored a job at this online company called ‘Roosterteeth’.

He wasn’t sure exactly what’d sparked off the confidence to tell him. Maybe it was the time he’d had to think, or regret, his former choice, maybe it was that Michael hadn’t abandoned him after he’d rejected him which had given Ray hope that they could maintain a friendship if this all went sour… maybe it was just that he felt, for the first time in years, like he might be finding his own niche in the world through his gaming and that’d given him the extra boost he needed to be a little more honest with those who mattered… honestly? Ray didn’t having a fucking clue why, but he’d decided not to question it all the same.

But when he’d told Michael he needed to tell him something, the redhead had asked to go first… and it’d been _then_ that Ray’s world had essentially come crashing down. ‘I met these guys’... of course he had. Of course he’d fucking met someone else. Of course he hadn’t waited around for Ray, why would he when he’d outright rejected him like that? Why would he anyway? Why would _anyone_ wait for someone like him?

He’d forced a smile, even though Michael couldn’t see his expression through the headset, and had offered a congratulations that’d sounded surprisingly convincing for a man whose chest had just been torn wide open by their conversation. By the time they’d reached ‘Ray’s important thing’, he’d feigned forgetting it, silently resolving to himself that Michael never needed to know, that he’d clearly moved on and that things were probably better off this way anyway.

After all, a guy with trust issues like he had would hardly have been able to hold down a long term relationship, would he? All he’d have done was end up hurting Michael, sooner or later. At least these guys he’d met sounded, from the way his friend talked about them, like they were actually capable of taking care of him and loving him in the way he damn well deserved… But all the same, he never could quite shake the jealous he felt whenever he pictured some other men’s hands on Michael’s body, their lips on his… almost painfully so, even though he knew he had _no_ goddamn right to be.

At least Michael was happy. As long as he was happy, and continued to be so, Ray could hold his tongue and leave things be, however much it hurt him, because Michael deserved that happiness, far more than Ray ever would.

\----

It’d been shortly after Michael had met ‘these guys’, or ‘his boys’ as he’d started referring to them now (and Ray was always forced pretend that the _his_ part of that statement didn’t make something in his gut twist painfully), that Ray had actually attempted dating again.

He supposed he’d just wanted a distraction, a way to forget the fact that the man who he’d, quite possibly, actually been halfway to in love with was now falling for someone else… or someones he guessed. Honestly? He wasn’t sure if the fact that there were a few of them, instead of just the one, actually made it better or even worse. Point was, he’d wanted someone to call his, or at least to play pretend with for a while, and the woman he’d met at an admittedly seedy looking bar had been surprisingly good for that.

She’d kicked his ass at Xbox games, a talent that very few could boast to these days, and had filled his relatively empty space with gentle touches and kisses and other things that’d eventually resulted in him finally losing his virginity to her but… everything just wasn’t quite _right_. It was nice, sure, and she was definitely _way_ more than Ray had ever imagined he’d get, or deserved to actually have a relationship with but… she hadn’t been him and eventually that’d been the deal breaker in their little fling. He couldn’t love her and gradually, she’d come to understand that and to want better that this.

He hadn’t even tried to stop her when she’d eventually snapped and walked out of his life, only apologized for wasting so much of her time on him.

Meanwhile Michael’s relationship was stronger than ever. He’d just hit his four month anniversary with them when Ray had split with his girlfriend and while Michael wasn’t the type to rub that stuff in people’s faces, there was a happy sort of contentment that lingered in his friend’s tone that spoke just as loudly.

Ray fucking hated it… and maybe hated himself even more for doing so.

And eventually it’d gotten too much, Michael’s happiness with the someones that weren’t him had gotten too much and so he’d just… shut down. Stopped accepting Michael’s requests on Xbox, stopped meeting him for coffees, and stopped answering his calls. For a good month or so he’d avoided him in every way he could think of, had run away from any emotions that threatened to surface because he just couldn’t… deal with this anymore. Couldn’t deal with Michael being this happy because it made that strange hollow gulf in his chest _burn_ and he _knew_ it was fucking selfish of him, of course he did but he couldn’t help it.

He hadn’t counted on the knock on his door one night, nor the fuming looking redhead on the other side of it asking him ‘where the fuck he’d been’ and telling him that he’d better have ‘a fucking good excuse for scaring the shit out of him like that’. He hadn’t counted on Michael being a good enough friend to care, even when Ray was being a pretty damn shitty one, or a stubborn enough friend to hunt through several blocks worth of flats until he’d finally tracked down Ray’s. He hadn’t counted on it but, even with Michael still obviously silently fuming at him as he’d made his way into Ray’s apartment, he couldn’t help but feel relieved that he’d been so wrong because fucking hell he’d missed him.

Maybe it was true that absence made the heart grow fonder, or maybe it was relief that’d driven his steps, but he’d found himself latching onto the fuming redhead in seconds, murmuring apologies into the man’s shoulder that were probably more incoherent and jumbled together than anything right now… But obviously he’d said something right, because moments later and Michael was hugging back.

They’d talked a little after that, Ray carefully edging around the truth with a clever lie about Michael’s relationship being a little too jarring in the face of his breakup with his ex, an excuse that he couldn’t actually believe the redhead had bought. After that he’d grovelled a little, seeing as he’d been seriously fucking selfish here and let Michael worry over him just because he hadn’t been able to get a grip on his own goddamn emotions. Michael had understood though, or seemed to, enough for him to ultimately forgive him and then offer him a game and pizza night since he was already here anyway. And after a whole damn month of self-inflicted radio silence? Who was Ray to turn that offer down?

Things had gotten slowly better after that. Maybe it was the realization that having Michael out of his life sucked a hell of a lot more than having a taken and ridiculously happy version in it, maybe the distance had just given him a little perspective, but it’d gotten… not _easier_ per say but, more bearable in some ways since now he knew what to expect, what to avoid talking about. And Michael had walked about on eggshells himself for a while after the incident, careful not to bring up his relationship for a while since he knew that’d been the thing to make Ray shut him out the first time.

Eventually though it’d gotten ridiculous, to the point that Ray had actually called him out on it because really, who was he to force Michael to censor mentions of his own relationship just because Ray was a jealous piece of shit… not that his friend knew about _that_ part of this but that still didn’t change a goddamn thing. He’d told Michael he was over his ex now, not exactly a lie since he could barely even remember what her favourite color or pet’s name had been anymore but… that didn’t mean hearing about Michael’s relationship was any less painful, Ray just figured it was about time he built a bridge and damn well got over it.

And so, little by little, Michael had started talking about his boys again. He’d told Ray about Geoff, the oldest of the group who actually voiced one of Ray’s favorite characters on the machinima series Michael’s company was famous for. Apparently the man had a great sense of humor, a heart of gold and was essentially the ‘daddy’ of the group… in a non-kinky way Michael had insisted to the soundtrack of Ray’s laughter and merciless teasing moments later when he’d actually realized what he’d said there.

He’d then started to mention Jack, the man his friend often credited as the ‘glue’ that held their complicated relationship together. He was practically empathic based on the way Michael described him, and apparently gave the best damn hugs the redhead had ever had. He’d also jokingly referred to him as the ‘mother bear’ in their relationship since whenever one of them got sick, it’d be Jack who’d make a fuss over them and take care of them.

Then there’d been Ryan. Honestly, Ray hadn’t been quite sure what to make of him based off the fact that Michael’s first ever proper description of the man was as a ‘crazy fucker’ but… over time he’d come to realize that was more of a persona than anything. The ‘mad king’ who also happened to be a technological genius and, secretly, also a huge softie if his hidden love for animals and surprisingly good skills in talking to and taking care of children were anything to go by.

Last of all, he’d mentioned Gavin. He’d often been described to Ray as a ‘fucking dumbass’ but, again, he got the sense that it was more of a persona than anything that Michael was describing there. From reading between the lines, he’d gathered that the guy was actually kind of a genius given that he worked with slow motion cameras and equipment on a regular basis, something that Michael seemed ridiculously proud of him for. Plus, he seemed to have an emotive sense of the people around him that was almost as strong as Jack’s if the way Michael had described the Brit looking after him when Ray had dropped off the radar was anything to go by.

They sounded like good men, more importantly good enough men to deserve Michael and… well, Ray knew when he was beat. And since it’d been almost six months now and his friend _still_ seemed ridiculously happy with them, Ray figured he’d been right before when he’d decided it was long since time that he accepted this relationship wasn’t going away anytime soon and tried to move forward from it, to move on even… if he could that was.

After all, as the romantic clichés he was still so fond of often told him, if you love something, set it free.

\----

He’d never really expected to actually come face to face with any of Michael’s ‘boys’.

Sure, they were close, far closer than Ray considered any of the other friends he’d had before he’d met the redhead at this point but… he’d always figured that it wasn’t quite the same for Michael who seemed to have countless friends, both in and outside the Roosterteeth office. He knew he was important to him, the whole ‘show up on his doorstep’ thing had kind of driven that home for him but… being important to Michael still didn’t necessarily mean he’d meet the men he was dating, not for a long while at any rate.

Then again, he’d also never expected that Roosterteeth would end up calling him in for an interview to work for them after his stuff had managed to catch their eye on youtube the way Michael’s had. He knew for a fact that the redhead must’ve had a hand or two in getting him noticed, or perhaps promoting him once he had been because… really, even with the gamerscore he had, Ray wasn’t exactly anything special, not like Michael was.

But whatever the reason, he’d been called for an interview and he guessed curiosity had gotten the better of him because he’d barely even hesitated in agreeing to come down to Austin for it. Naturally Michael had been thrilled once he’d found out, talking about the job as if Ray had already gotten it (and with the strings that the man may or may not have pulled to get him there in the first place, maybe he already had) and giving him advice on whereabouts to book a room in the state after Ray had politely declined Michael’s offer to stay with him… because these days? Staying with Michael would mean also staying with Geoff, Jack, Ryan and Gavin. And, as much as Ray had gradually gotten better at dealing with his jealousy, and at accepting that Michael was genuinely happy with them… he still wasn’t sure he was quite in the right frame of mind to be able to deal with _seeing_ it first-hand for the duration of his stay here.

Which was actually the main reason he was so sceptical about this job offer in the first place. If he couldn’t deal with seeing Michael happy with his boys, how the hell was he supposed to work with them all in the cramped little office known as Achievement Hunter headquarters? He just couldn’t see it working out so great, not that he was ready to say that to Michael’s face when his friend seemed so genuinely excited about the possibility of working together. No, he’d figure out some valid excuse later, for now he’d focus more on trying to book one of those hotels Michael had mentioned and trying not to fuck up the interview he had so bad that his friend would regret promoting him to his employers.

He hadn’t expected it to be one of Michael’s infamous ‘boys’ actually conducting the interview itself. Then again, he supposed he probably should’ve seen this coming given that the interview was for ‘Achievement Hunter’ and Geoff Ramsey just so happened to be in charge of that particular section of the company. Either way, that morning had found himself face to face with a man that he’d once almost hated on principle and had recently grown to respect at the very least… he’d never, in his wildest dreams, actually expected to genuinely _like_ him though.

But the man had just as great of a sense of humor as Michael had claimed, plus he had this way of putting the person he was talking to at ease and before Ray knew it, he’d actually genuinely been smiling through the interview, laughing even at some of the jokes that Geoff cracked. It’d been, without a doubt, the most laid back interview he’d ever had and suddenly he’d found himself understanding a little of the reason why Michael enjoyed working here so much. It felt relaxed, but not overly so. A place where hanging out with friends and producing content went hand in hand and the longer they’d spent talking, the harder he’d found it to remember why exactly he’d been planning to politely decline this job offer in the first place.

And by the time the interview was over? Ray had found himself walking away with an offer he claimed he’d think about, but that he was pretty damn sure both of them knew would turn into a yes before the day was out, and a strange sense of optimism that, despite the situation he was in here, working in the Achievement Hunter office might not actually turn out so bad after all.

\----

It’d been a little disorientating at first, getting to know the seemingly endless mass of employees that worked for Roosterteeth. Everywhere he went, it seemed, there was another person he hadn’t been introduced to yet and after a while the names they offered began to blur together a little in his mind… but at the same time, that blur was friendly, and seemed to have the same laid back, friendly attitude that Geoff had shown during the interview. And, as time had passed, he’d begun to be able to pick individuals out of that blur, to really get to know them, and to finally settle into a place where, cliché as it was to say, he actually felt like he belonged.

And in the Achievement Hunter office itself? Honestly Ray had been surprised by how easily he’d seemed to slip into the group’s dynamic, especially when he knew that the rest of them, save Lindsay and Caleb, actually went home together at the end of the day. But they’d all been more than welcoming from the outset. Both Geoff and Jack had taken extra measures to ensure he was settling in okay, Gavin had joked about with him in the, surprisingly successful, attempts to draw him and his ‘voice’ out more in videos, Ryan had taken him off to one side to ask if he was okay that first day at the job when everything had been a little too intense and overwhelming (and the fact that he knew the guy had been keeping a careful eye on him ever since) and then of course there’d been Michael who’d looked the happiest Ray had seen him in months.

When he’d asked the redhead why, he’d gotten a snark and a cleverly placed indie game distraction in response but… he’d continued to catch glimpses of that smile dancing in his eyes. And sometimes? Ray liked to pretend that this silent, secretive smile was, at least in part, for him.

Because for all his efforts to dull his emotions towards the redhead, they’d never quite gone away the way he’d wanted them to. In fact, if anything, they were getting worse the more time he spent with him since now he was getting to see the little things about Michael that the distance hadn’t allowed before and damn if they weren’t as frustratingly loveable as the rest of the man.

The one thing that had gotten better, however, was the jealousy he’d felt before he’d met these men. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was that’d made that change, or when it’d actually happened but… at some point he’d stopped even slightly resenting these men for dating Michael, and not just because he considered them as ‘worthy’ of the man’s love.

It’d taken an almost embarrassingly long amount of time for him to finally put two and two together and figure out why the jealousy had _really_ faded though… and the content of that revelation had, naturally, led the long awaited and probably inevitable third breakdown when he realized he wasn’t just hopelessly in love with one man anymore, but _five_.

How it had happened? He honestly had no idea. Why? He honestly had too many… those questions aside however, all he knew was that falling in love with more unattainable men who were supposed to be his friends was only going to cause him more heartache in the long run. So, without even really, consciously meaning to, he’d started to pull back a little in the Let’s Plays, and in the other content they produced.

And at first, they’d barely even seemed to notice. Too caught up in the schematics of transferring Lindsay over to Achievement Hunter full time, and beginning to look into hiring a new editor to join her on the team. Too caught up in their relationship and the fact that one of their anniversaries was apparently approaching pretty soon. Probably caught up in the ridiculous stacks of edits that never seemed to stop stacking up around the office too. Ray sure as hell knew they’d kept _him_ busy here at least.

Eventually Ryan had seemed to clue into the fact that he was acting a little _off_ in the videos though, and had wound up pulling Ray aside for another one of his little ‘talks’. Of course the man didn’t know that doing that was only doing more to fuel the futile aspirations of his ignorant heart here, of course he was oblivious to the extra damage he was doing as he’d tried to help… at least he’d meant well, and had backed off eventually when he’d realized Ray wasn’t quite ready to hear whatever it was he had to say on whatever was actually bothering him.

Jack had noticed shortly after that. Ray could tell by the way the man had tried to catch his eye for a full let’s play after he’d had his revelation, concern brimming up in the man’s gaze to the point that it was practically overflowing, though he’d done his best to shake the man off that scent with false smiles and laughs. The man clearly hadn’t bought it though and a few hours later? Geoff had known something was up too.

How had he known that? Because the man had actually brought a standstill to a whole damn Let’s Play, mid game, just to make sure he had the chance to call Ray out on whatever the fuck it was that’d been making him hold back in their videos lately…

He hadn’t meant to babble out an excuse about professionalism, not in an office where being professional was wearing a tie to fancy dinners and restraining the urge to doodle a detailed cock in public… And naturally, none of the men who’d be gathered there when he’d thought it up had actually bought it, not even Gavin.

Plan B then… tell the truth, no matter how fucking terrifying the thought of doing so happened to be. Because really, at this point, didn’t they all (especially Michael) deserve that much?

It’d been a painful ten minutes of explaining to a particularly interesting patch of floor… okay well, admittedly, more like babbling to it for that long before someone had finally taken pity on him and had actually cut in to shut him up, a hand moving to gently tilt his chin up so their eyes actually met and oh… of course it was Michael. Because for all Ryan had kept an eye on him since he’d arrived here, or Jack just inherently understood people (to the point that it was almost _scary_ really), they still had nothing on the years of friendship he and Michael had shared by this point, the years of understanding… or maybe it was just the fact that the redhead had always been a little touchy feely with people he trusted, people he cared about.

Honestly, Ray was just relieved that, after all that, he could still be considered as one of those people.

He hadn’t expected the soft smile on the man’s lips, nor the simple words that’d fallen from them, words that he’d long since wished he’d given a different answer to but had come to accept that he’d never get the chance to answer again, “Coffee? Kind of sounds like a date I know but… hey, I don’t think we’d mind that so much if you don’t.”

It’d taken a lot to swallow the lump in his throat and answer the way he actually wanted to this time. But Michael’s hands were a steadying, warm and reassuring presence against his chin, and as his gaze flitted from the redhead’s to the other men in the room, only to find nothing but a nervous, tentative sort of hope… well suddenly it was hardly a choice at all, was it?

\----

They’d promised Ray to take it slow.

It’d been something he’d been more than a little grateful for considering that adjusting to having these feelings for these men had been disorientating enough but… to actually take the plunge into that fully blown relationship? That was something else entirely.

In the end, their first date had actually, _genuinely,_ been coffee since, as fate would have it, someone managed to bust up the coffee machine in the office and they’d figured, may as well make the most of the situation. And honestly, it hadn’t really been all different to hanging out with the men before. They joked, they snarked, at least one of them was called a dumbass before they’d actually managed to place their orders for drinks… it was nice, comforting and oddly familiar.

The only thing that’d notably changed really was the jokey flirting had more meaning again now, the way it had before when he and Michael had first gotten to know each other through first person shooters and dick jokes. Plus there was the fact that Michael’s hand never left his the whole time they spent in that coffee shop. Gavin had teased at one point that the redhead was hogging Ray to which he’d been quick to point out that he’d waited for Ray the longest dammit, he got goddamn special hand holding privileges for that.

And Ray had been too busy grinning like the goddamn idiot he was about the fact that Michael genuinely had waited for him all this time to complain really.

It hadn’t lasted all that long, just as much as a slightly extended lunch break would allow, but to Ray it’d still been absolutely perfect and just what he’d needed to gradually start easing him into this relationship.

Date two had also been fairly laid back. A cooked meal at the boy’s apartment where Geoff had made dinner for them and Ray had discovered that he’d been damn well _deprived_ up to this point in his life given that he’d never tasted the gent’s cooking before now. Gavin had also given him a single red rose since apparently he’d heard from a certain someone (so obviously Michael then) that he happened to be a fan of kind of clichéd romance and he wasn’t sure if roses worked with that or not but he figured he’d try it anyway.

In the end Ray was pretty sure it’d been the nervous sort of babble that’d begun to fall from the Brit’s lips that’d actually driven him to close the distance between them. It hadn’t been a long kiss, just the slightest press of lips before Ray had pulled back with cheeks almost as dark as the flower Gavin had given him. It’d been worth it though for the look of utter shock that’d quickly morphed into delight when he’d realized that Ray really had just kissed him.

He hadn’t tried to push Ray for more though, even if a part of him obviously wanted to given the way the Brit’s gaze kept drifting to his lips after that. Because Gavin had seemed content enough to let Ray set his own pace, they all did, even as the others teased about being jealous because Gavin had gotten to kiss him first.

At the end of the third date he’d had with his boys, Geoff had been the one to initiate a kiss when he’d dropped Ray back at his apartment. He’d lingered in the doorway a few moments, eyes silently searching his to check what he was about to do was okay, before he’d slowly closed the distance between them, gently taking Ray’s head in his hands as he’d brought their lips together in a soft but firm kiss… or maybe kisses was more accurate since Ray had ended up lingering a little longer than he’d initially planned after that. He’d returned to his apartment that night with a huge grin that’d somehow convinced Tina, the woman who lived in the room across from his, that he’d ‘finally gotten some’... he guessed, in a way, she hadn’t been _too_ far off.

The first actual make out session he’d had with one of his boys had been sometime after their fifth date when Ray had gotten bored with working on his edit and had decided visiting Ryan was a good enough excuse to take a break. They’d talked for a while, casually flirted the way that’d almost become as easy as breathing to Ray by this point… and then suddenly there’d been that ‘mad king’ smirk curving Ryan’s lips and Ray maintained that he really couldn’t help that moments later he just so _happened_ to be attached to them. That smirk was a force of evil all on its own dammit.

It’d taken Ray a while to move any further after that, but when he had it’d been with one of Jack’s hands gently smoothing it’s way along his back and his lips murmuring soft, warm words that made something that felt like safety and comfort and the love he’d always been so afraid of unfurl within his chest. And after that, Ray found he hadn’t been so scared.

He wasn’t entirely sure when he’d first started staying the night at their flat. It’d been before he’d fully built himself to using that giant bed of theirs for activities other than sleeping, well not with all of them involved at once at any rate, but he’d still say it must’ve been a good month or so into their relationship, maybe more, before it’d started and a good two more before he’d actually noticed it happening.

And he’d surprised himself a little with how practically non-existent his freak out was this time. Then again, it was pretty damn hard to truly freak out about something like this when you knew in all certainly that the five men you were pretty sure you were hopelessly in love with at this point just so happened to love you back. So instead of another break down, he’d just silently moved to leave more of his things at their place, just to make life easier.

It’d started out with a few extra items of clothing here and there, a toothbrush, his phone charger… practical things. Somehow it’d escalated over time, to the point where by the time he’d fully realized what he was doing, he’d already half moved into the flat where his boys lived. Once again, he hadn’t been scared though, not like he’d always imagined he’d be in this situation. Because he loved his boys, and that was enough to trust them and to trust that they loved him back just as much.

Two weeks later and they’d ask him to move in with them. Ray wouldn’t even hesitate before he’d say yes.


End file.
